AHR

What took them so long? After months of being unable to service its debt, and numerous SEC filings describing the Company’s inability to cure its defaults, secured lenders finally closed in on Anthracite Capital, a struggling Mortgage REIT with a “legacy” portfolio full of almost worthless CMBS equity. While events began to spin out of […]

If Frank Quattrone could start over, he would be a REIT banker. REITs staged a huge rally this quarter, almost $15 billion in new equity has been raised through 45 public offerings this year, and even the Italians are descending upon New York to list new deals. With REIT stocks now being served up like […]

“I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.” Wimpy, character from the cartoon series Popeye As many of you may remember, Wimpy was not only a character from the Popeye cartoon series, he was also a glutton for hamburgers, and he would consume them at a ferocious rate. Of course, “Tuesday” would never come, […]

Moody’s went more negative on commercial real estate yesterday, and as a result they went even more negative on below-investment grade CMBS. I have written about the bullseye that is on Anthracite’s (AHR) controlling class chest before, and while AHR is well-managed and still enjoys tangible, substantive support from parent Blackrock, if you’re new to […]

Securitization is the process of taking groups of loans and splitting them into different classes of securities, and then selling the different classes of securities to third party investors. The brief video below does a great job of explaining how it all works. Many Mortgage REITs buy Commercial Mortgage Backed Securities (CMBS), which are commercial […]

“The Taliban used to hang the victim’s body in public for four days. We will only hang the body for a short time, say 15 minutes. Adulterers will still be stoned to death, but we will use only small stones.” Afghan judge Ahamat Ullha Zarif on a kindler, gentler Afghanistan ….And a taxable loss, dear […]

You know, it takes a bit of grip to host this pig. Even though the code sits on some server quietly doing its thing somewhere in American Samoa, they hit my credit card every month for at least a topped-off tank of California gas. And I only get about a mile per million clicks, if […]

Anthracite reported mixed results on Friday, well shy of the Company’s .31/share dividend, noting that it was still receiving margin calls on the 18% portion of its portfolio that was not match funded. The Company’s cash levels are low ($38.6MM unrestricted) relative to an amortization payment of $31MM required on September 30th under its newly […]

“If you can take advantage of a situation in some way, it’s your duty as an American to do it.” C. Mongtomery Burns, the oligarchical CEO in television’s “The Simpsons” Could Re-Remics break the liquidity logjam in Mortgage REITs? It’s a distinct possibility, and quants all over Wall Street are dutifully burning up their computer […]

Way back on June 3rd, when thoughts of Fannie Mae crashing to the ground like Icarus on a hot July weekend were not so prevalent, Anthracite filed a shelf offering with the SEC, stating that it may periodically sell up to $500 million in common and preferred stock, debt securities and warrants, with the exact […]